Friday, December 21, 2007

Now is the actual process of AoE grinding. The killing part is reallyeasy. All you need to do is press a key, aim, and then unleash hell onyour foes. And watch the purple numbers fly.

I wouldn't recommend actually grinding before lvl 40 or so, but that'sjust me (I prefer questing, it means more for the game to me – yes, Iknow, I'm writing a grinding guide….). But if you insist, I reallyrecommend only grinding when you hit 26. This is when you get ArcticReach 2/2 and Imp Blizzard 3/3, which are vital talents. Otherwiseyou'll only fit in 1 full Blizzard.

Pick a place where there are 5-10 MELEE mobs, of your same level.All ranged classes murder you, as they interrupt your blizzard castingand generally mess everything up. If you're lucky, and there's onlyone, you may be able to sheep them, but this is risky.STAY AWAY FROM RANGED! There should be space for blinking around,running around, and also a good place to flee just in case. I'llsuggest some good places later on.

Here is the entire AoE process, and I'll explain how further below.

Q u o t e:

- Choose a good spot, where you can see 5 or 10 mobs, and a goodspace for you to run around.

- Run into the mobs – try to get the mob furthest away from youroriginal position first, to the mob nearest to you.

- After you have the mobs you want, run around in spirals for afew seconds to cluster them together. If they're not in a group, runback and circle them until they are.

- Dismount. (Or just hit the next spell, ie. Ice Block or IceBarrier - dismounting is now automatic)

- Put Ice block on, if you have it. Otherwise, put on ice barrier(just to be safe).

- Once they are all hitting you, frost nova, and blink away.Anywhere, so long as it's not off a cliff, or into more mobs. Strafeaway about 16 yards, or a few seconds. This is your max range forBlizzard.

- Hit the key, and aim the green circle so that the edge furthestaway from you touches the furthest guy at the back.

- When the first blizzard is about to be over, hit the key again,and aim the green circle so that the furthest edge away from you isjust IN FRONT of the guy CLOSEST to you.

- Ice barrier if you want to be safe. You'll probably run out ofmana around here, and you still need mana for one more blizzard and aCoC. Eat a mana gem if you want.

- CoC, then frost nova and blink TOWARDS the enemy (so you're nowbehind the mob who was furthest away from you – or you can blink away,but you have to check there IS space. Generally there isn't, and justto be safe, you should blink towards your mobs)

- Blizzard again, and they should be dead. If not, finish up witha CoC, and if the infidel still insist on living, you can wand themdown, AE, Fire blast, etc.

- Hooray! You killed them all!

Essential talents to take there are:

Q u o t e: -Imp Blizzard, 3/3 –

You need 3/3 to fit in 2 blizzards when firing at max range before themobs reach you. If you spec 1/3, you can only fit in 1, and 1.5 if 2/3.

Q u o t e: -Arctic Reach, 2/3

Like Imp Blizzard, you need this to obtain the max 36 yards of yourblizzard. Otherwise you can't fit in 2.

Q u o t e: -Imp CoC, 3/3

You'll be using CoC a lot, with your blizzard, and more damage (+35%)is good.

Q u o t e: -Ice Barrier 1/1

You need this during the pulling part. If you use mana shield you'llhave half your mana burned before you even start killing.

Note the above are the absolute `must'. You simply have to take them.

Here are the recommended talents. (Not just talents which could behelpful, but should be taken unless you really want another talent)These are in no particular order.

Q u o t e: -Elemental Precision 3/3

Nothing is worse than 1 out of the 10 mobs resisting that frost novaand then whacking you as you perform blizzard.Less resistance, thus, is good, and so is the reduced mana cost as youwill be burning up your entire mana bar during the killing process(blizzard x3 or 4 + CoC + frost nova + ice barrier is quite a lot ofmana).

Q u o t e: -Cold Snap 1/1

Useful if you really need to pop a frost nova or ice barrier.

Q u o t e: -Improved Frost Nova 2/2

Frost nova is used a lot, and 4 secs left of cooldown is always good.However this is not vital.

Q u o t e: -Permafrost 3/3

Reducing the mobs' speed by +10% gives you more time to think andreact, but this is once again not essential.

Q u o t e: -Ice block 1/1

This is actually a very important spell, and is on the border of beinga `must' talent. This can be used during the pulling process – pop upthe ice block and allow them to you, so they become clustered into agroup. Also useful in emergencies.

Lastly,

Q u o t e: Frost Channeling, 3/3

Less mana usage is always good, as explained in Elemental Precision.

Talents NOT to take – these aren't talents which aren't good (some ofthem are amazing), they just wreck your AoE grind if you take them.

Q u o t e: -Frostbite

Yuck. Having some mobs frozen and left behind and some not means thegroup is not together and clustered.Absolutely horrible, because you can't perform AoE on them if one isahead and the other is 50 yards behind. Go take Wand Specialization,if you're going to take this. Absolutely horrible for AoE grinding.Note this is actually pretty good if you're single-targetting DPS.

-

Q u o t e: Any +crit % or +crit damage (ice shards, shatter)

These don't wreck your AoE grinding, but you need to save thesetalents for others. Blizzard doesn't crit, so it's quite pointless,and you don't want to rely on critting for this type of grindingprocess in case it doesn't crit. Then you're dead.

OK. Enough of talents. That was quite boring.

Heres a list of some spots to aoe, contributed by mardy. (slightlymodified by Knoxwille @ Grim Batol ;>

I know some of the link`s to the spot is broken,and i will add newworking ones as soon as i have time

First off i'd recommend to go for Stamina and Intellect in gear foraoe levling. Spell damage doesn't matter very much. since pre levelmid 60`s you will need to gimp sta and/or intl to get +spell dmg

(Level: 19-21) Ravenclaw Undead - Beren's Peri (Silverpine Forest)http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/map.htm...zoneid=2016--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I suggest to do quests until level 20 and then start to do aoe at theplaces belove ( since frankly, you wont do that good before u get sometalent into frost tree imp blizzard and the fact that you don`t getblizzard before lvl 20 :> so you will do more xp pr hour by questingand stuff :> from lvl 1 -20

Also if you just started wow, you shod rather do quest and explore thegame,rather then use this guide since leveling 1-60(1-70now :D ) wasgreate fun on my first char (atleast i liked the quest, and takingtime to explore Azeroth, seeing the instance and work with other pplin groups.

But it get kinda boring after the first char tho, since u mostly knowall quest and mostly want to get to the top level as fast as possible( atleast thats how i feel)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(Level: 25-29) Skeletal Undead - Raven Hill Cemetary (Duskwood)http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/map.htm...zoneid=2008(this is a GREATE spot also the Gy is really close ( not that greatefor horde tho, since there is quite alott of allys add`s around :>)

(Level: 22-26) Hillsbrad Farmers/Peasants - Hillsbrad Fields(Hillsbrad Foothills)http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/map.htm...zoneid=2011(you shod bring amage friend or a healer for this, since you often get adds. ( you shodalso pick up the quest for this spot in tarren mill(Horde), since theyou do get somewhat decent xp from those)

(Level: 40-45) Southsea Pirates (Tanaris)http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/map.htm...zoneid=1015Ahhh now LOST RIGGER COVE is where its at. On my server not manypeople grind this area. I catagorized the area into 5 pulls, will lastme until 52. At level 51 im able to grind 40k/hr.

27-30Raven Hill or Tomb. Duskwood. Good Undead mobs to grind on, lots ofthem and fast respawns. Watch out for casters, and there may belimited space to blink around in. Lots of quests for killing theseguys. Undead so no runners.

30-35Witherbark Village. Arathi Highlands. The trolls are great to grindon, but watch out for ranged. There are quests for here too in AH.Look out for runners.

32-35Yetis in Yeti Cave of Arathi Highlands. No ranged or casters, good togrind on. However, they may be quite spread out, so be careful duringpulling process.

Q u o t e: • 46,31 - Yeti Cave

35-38Hillsbrad farms. Horde only, this is an amazing place. Lots ofmeleeing weak male farmers - annihilate them! Watch out for the mages,though. The farmers run too, so get ready to wand. Work your way tothe north, then go south again, etc.

36-40Murlocs in Dustwallow marsh. These have no ranged and are easy togrind on, since they have no special attacks. This is where AoEgrinding starts to kick off, excellent place to grind. There's a largecamp of around 40 murlocs north east of North Sentry Tower, with fastrespawns.Over the hill there are another 40 too, but these guys give poison, sowatch out.However, the aggro radius is pretty big, so watch out on this as well,They also run too. Gurgle

Q u o t e:

• 57,16 -Murlocs • 54,14 -Murlocs • 57,21 -Murlocs

40-44Murlocs in Swamp of Sorrows. Read above. Gurgle.

Some people are having lots of trouble here, I'm not sure why. Theimportant thing is to find enough space amongst the vegetation, and noranged. Lots of mobs doesn't matter, more doesn't necessarily higherchance of dying.

44-50Pirates in Lost Rigger Cove, Tanaris, or just in Tanaris (watch outfor the `locks though). Some ranged, and they run.

42-45Trolls in Hinterlands. Not that great because there are lots of rangedmobs. Only really choose here if you have a quest, or you hate thepirates.

Q u o t e: • 31,57 - Trolls at Hiri'watha

50-54,Undead in Sorrow Hill. Great place, this is where the speed of AoEgrinding really kicks in when it boosts you to 60. Very fast respawns,and the mobs generally cluster in 5s or 6s in the first place anyway.Lots of runecloth/money drops, and no runners. No ranged. This can bea busy place though, so try to find a quiet time in the day, eg lateat night or early in the morning. Weekdays ftw.

Q u o t e:

• 51,77 -Sorrow Hill

53-60.Undead in Dalson's Tears. This is a great place to grind, no ranged atall. Even faster respawns than Sorrow Hill, and good drops too. Niceplace to grind for rep for AD, watch out for fears though. This willtake you all the way to the infamous 60. This is less busy than SorrowHill, so come here when you can.

Q u o t e: • 46,53 -Dalson's Tears.

Above level 40 or so Alliance players can go to Horde areas easily, orvice versa. A lot of people have requested Horde grinding sites, but Idon't many but here's a good list compiled by Runningcat (thanks! :P)http://wow.stenbakk.net/grind.htmAnd no, I have not grinded past 60 yet >.<

NagrandMost animals there are good for AOEing, watch the Talbuk's however asthey have a nasty charge which can bring tears to even the most highlytalented AOEers out there...

Blade's Edge MountainsShadowmoon ValleyNetherstorm

GEAR – if you can, invest in stamina and intellect.Eagle gear is good, as it focuses on these 2 stats.

Spirit is the only other valid option for a mage, but since you'recasting 100% of the time, all it'll do is less downtime, but you candrink anyway. Mage armour allows a bit of mana regen (30%), but you'llneed a lot of spirit for it to have any effect, so it's not worth it.

Mana/5s - like spirit, you need a lot for effect and it's better totake intellect and stam since you're doing burst mass damage, not slowendurance damage.

+damage does not affect blizzard much in comparison of the otherspells. It's good, but tbh Stam and Int is better, and imo it's moreimportant to get those. But if you think you have enough hp/mana, grabsome +dmg for some extra pew pew.

You need lots of intellect because of the high mana usage, and lots ofstamina since a lvl 50 being hit by 10 lvl 50s is quite deadly.

1 int = 15 mana1 stam = 10 hp

Don't take strength or agility, etc. You need a lot for the effect.

Try to get a rune of perfection from the wsg pvp vendor, as it makesyour mobs resist less. It's a trinket.If you can, try to up your +hit, but don't sacrifice your int/stam forthis.

Apart from that, the main thing is to have fun! AoE grinding is meantto be fast, fun and exciting, so if you hate it, don't force yourself!However, DO remember you die a lot in the first few tries, so don'tlet that put you off. Once you learn it, you can't forget, and you'llbe racking in the xp by the 1000s.

Enjoy this guide, and I hope it's been of use. Have fun in AoEgrinding, and may you always be a blink away from danger!

The killing part is very easy to master. It simply involves blizzard,blizzard, CoC, nova, Blizzard, and maybe another CoC.

The pulling part requires precise movements and reactions, as you arebeing hit by 10 mobs of your same level. Ice barrier is prettyimportant, as you can lose a lot of hp much faster than you think.You don't just charge in like a crazed gnome either, you should tagthe one furthest away, then work your way to the front. Keep goingback to the first tagged mob once in a while, so they keep their aggroon you. Once you've tagged them all, you must run around in spirals,and if there are ones which aren't with the group, you need to run tothem, then run back to the group.

The biggest area for dying is the part between the dismounting and theblinking away.This is why ice block can be very useful. It needs to be done quickly,but not rushed.The second you dismount, you must frost nova, but you have to nova allof them.If there is a mob you know who's outside the nova range, don't botherwasting your nova. Just run around in circles (very dangerous) untilyou can, and immediately blink away. If you're lucky you might be ableto pop up a CoC just before you blink, but this is depending on howgood you are.

The first few tries you WILL die a lot. It's a sad fact, but you haveto accept it. Just keep practicing and practicing until you get thetimes, CDs, and movements right.

Oh no, it's all gone wrong!

Things can go wrong. Not every run is going to be perfect, oridentical. Part of the challenge is to deal with these problems(usually involving running away as fast as you can :D).

Here are some things which can mess up, and some solutions -

Nova (after the pulling) does not freeze all the mobs - either throughresisting, or just out of rangeThere are 3 ways of approaching this

- Cold snap, and then nova again - Summon your elemental, and freeze the extra mobs - Run away. This is actually probably the best idea, for severalreasons. - It's still early in the AoE run, so there's not much tolose. You'll have mainly full hp and mana, so just try again - If you CS/Elemental and nova again, the extra mob(s) isaway from the main group, which may lead to difficulties later on.You'll also have lost precious seconds refreezing. - All the mobs are frozen, so it's very easy to run away.

You've eaten your gem, drank your pot, but they're still living andyou have no mana

Don't panic. Just pop up ice barrier, and evocate. If you don'thave the barrier, freeze and blink away (hopefully you have mana to dothis - if you don't, just pray), then evocate. If they've still gotmore than 50% hp, there's something wrong with your tactic, you'reburning your mana far too fast.

Help! An add!

Generally, just leg it. You can try to follow the nova tips(elemental/CS + nova), but the adds will be far from your main group,and have full hp. Freeze your friends and blink out of the area. If the add is a ranger/caster, run away as fast as you can.Don't even try to fight back, unless your main group is dead and youhave a decent amount of mana left to single-target the guys. Do NOTAoE range/caster adds.

If you're evil, run towards some unsuspecting player. He'll either runaway, or try to help you, or do some heroic last stand. If it's thelast two, then well done, you've saved your life and killed a player.